Posted on 12/22/2006 10:22:49 PM PST by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Optimists may enjoy longer lives than people with a dimmer outlook on the future, a long-term study suggests.
Researchers found that of nearly 7,000 adults followed since their college days in the 1960s, those who were optimistic in their youth had a lower risk of dying over the next 40 years than their more pessimistic peers.
On average, the most pessimistic study participants were 42 percent more likely to die of any cause than the most positive participants, according to findings published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings medical journal.
The results echo those of a number of past studies on personality factors and health, including research that has linked optimism to longer life. One study of elderly adults found that those with a positive view of the future were less likely than pessimists to die over the next decade -- regardless of their health at the start of the study.
The current findings could be explained by any number of factors, according to the study authors, led by Dr. Beverly H. Brummett of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.
For example, they say, optimists are less likely to suffer from depression than are pessimists, which could, in turn, affect their physical health. They may also maintain a healthier lifestyle, paying more attention to their diet and exercise habits.
These latest findings are based on a 40-year follow-up of 6,958 men and women who entered the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in the mid-1960s. At the time, they took a standard personality test that gauges a person's tendency to be optimistic or pessimistic.
In general, optimists believe negative events are only temporary and don't let them affect their overall attitude about themselves and the world. Pessimists, in contrast, take such events to heart, often blaming themselves and believing that the bad times will last forever.
In this study, 1,630 were deemed pessimists and 923 optimists, while most were judged to be somewhere between a pure optimist or pessimist.
If pessimism is a risk factor for premature death, that begs the question of whether anything can be done about it.
It is difficult to change the basic constructs of your personality, Brummett told Reuters Health. However, she added, "there are many aspects of personality that can be modified to a certain degree if an individual is motivated to do so."
For example, Brummett said, people with a hostile temperament -- a trait linked to heart disease and premature death -- may be able to change their ways with the help of anger management therapy.
On the other side of the spectrum, people might try injecting some positivity into their lives. As an example, Brummett pointed to meditation, which, according to some research, may boost positive emotions.
SOURCE: Mayo Clinic Proceedings, December 2006.
Thos does not bode well for democrats....
Hey, maybe they'll let me back in now!
Oops! Better not get my hopes up. . . .
Sure sounds like my mother in-law
Who has very high blood pressure from worrying about every damn thing that happens or doesn't happen
Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament, it is possible to be both.
How?
By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing risks you can't avoid
This permits you to play out the game happily, untroubled by the certainty of the out come.
Robert Heinlein
"I'd be optimistic too, if I knew I was gonna live longer."
Not if you'd had a life like mine...
Let them. 105 who wants to live that long. I think 75 is a good age to go out. After 75 things start to break down and your body starts to ache. Plus, the last six months of our lives are the most expensive of our lives due to medical. However, if everyone could stay healthy and young then living until 100 and then dying in our sleep would be great!
LOL
Their meetings only seem to last forever.
My Optimist lived to 102.
college freshmen in '60s ??
CC
Just another thing for a pessimist to be pessimistic about :-(.
Merry Christmas all! And as an optimist I wish all a very, special new year with a multitude of blessings because of course they are coming. They always do. :-).
Are they optimists because they know they will live longer, or do they live longer because they want to and have more to live for?
Wow! I was gonna start a pessimists club, but I didn't think anybody would have showed up...
I was graduated from high school fifty years ago. This year, I received a list of those, who are no longer with us.
When the Nam deaths, other military deaths and accidental deaths from car accidents to lightening strike deaths were factored out, the list was filled with pessimists from highschool years to the end of their lives.
A very large % ot these negative people were born into miserable democrat/liberal families and grew up to be miserable democrats.
Most of them never had a sense of humor and expected the worse to happen to the world, their families and them. Most died without a church/religion. Maybe they had self fullfilling low expectations of life.
The liberals with a sense of humor, pride in their families and selves and with a religious connection seem to be doing okay. They would be classified as the Old Type of Democrats, and we see the same out here in California with that rare type of democrat.
My optimist? My proctor had no idea waht to to do about my prostate checkup.
I was kidding about the DUmmies. They are so angry and pessimistic, it is amazing that any of them live to be 40.
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